


Always Together

by 15Acesplz



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Childhood Memories, Christmas Fluff, Crying, Drunken Confessions, Flying, Fourth of July, Friends to Lovers, Gift Giving, Hanukkah, Hugs, Letters, M/M, Mild Blood, New Year's Eve, New York City, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pining, Slow Burn, Song Lyrics, Unexpected Visitors, World Travel, a bit at the beginning, the slowest of burns
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-01
Updated: 2016-12-21
Packaged: 2018-09-03 13:52:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8716384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/15Acesplz/pseuds/15Acesplz
Summary: Magic, adventure, and something like joy: that’s what Newt brings into Jacob’s life, and that’s what always seems missing when he isn’t around.Comfort, familiarity, and warmth: that’s what Jacob is to Newt, and that’s why he can never leave him behind for long.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I liked FBAWTFT a lot, and my hyperfocus-tendencies liked it even more. So here’s the beginning of this monster of a fic (pun intended) that has a hell of an ambitious outline. I will probably update sporadically, but I’ll try not to make the wait between chapters too long. Enjoy!

Newt had never once considered Obliviating Jacob after that first encounter. It was without even thinking about it that he cast an Umbrella Charm – with a bit more gusto than usual so they could both fit under the span of its protection– and walked out of the subway stairwell with Jacob, holding his arm to keep him far enough from the falling sheets of rain.

“Newt, what are you doing?” Tina called sharply after him.

They stopped and turned. Newt stared. _What do you think I’m doing?_ he considered saying.

Queenie nodded in understanding. “What you want,” she finished.

Newt colored and ducked his head. He hated when she did that. “Tina –” he started.

She shook her head, sighing in exasperation. “I know, it’s no use. If we Obliviated him you’d just do something rash and silly, like try to make him remember. Go on, then. I won’t stop you. But I want nothing more to do with this. I’d lose my job.”

Jacob was turning his head back and forth between the Tina and Newt in a conflicted manner. “I mean, it’s a law that I’m supposed to. Should I?”

Newt looked him in the eyes, and, too quiet for the Goldsteins to hear, responded, “Only if you want to.”

He laughed, seeming bewildered at his own gall. “Well, that settles it.” Newt threw one last glance back at Tina and Queenie, and then they continued walking. The silence was steady, but Newt didn’t find it at all uncomfortable. Eventually Jacob said, “You know, I think you’ve convinced me to make more bad decisions in the past couple days than I’ve ever made in my life. But somehow… they were also the best decisions I’ve ever made in my life. Isn’t that crazy.”

It was intended as a statement, not a real question, but Newt answered anyway. “No. It’s not.” He smiled at Jacob, and Jacob beamed back.

\- - - - -

_Dear Newt,_

_Hi, pal! I bet this letter’s going to just about follow you to London. I walked home right after you boarded your ship and sat down to write it. I hope your trip back went good, and that everything’s the way you left it. Or maybe that’s just how I’d want it if I hadn’t been home for over a year. You’re a spontaneous kind of guy, so maybe you feel different. Anyway, I hope you’re doing okay._

_I really can’t thank you enough for helping me out with the loan. I promise I’m going to pay you back, even though you told me not to and went on and on about how you really got to keep the most valuable part of the ocamy eggs – the ocamies themselves! (I think your exact words were, ‘my slippery little lovelies’.) By the way, am I spelling ocamy right? But like you probably know, I’m really excited to open Kowalski Quality Baked Goods. Too bad I can’t send you some of my goodies. Hey, I could pay you back that way, by giving you 2000 bucks worth of pastries! Wouldn’t that be something._

_Hey, I forgot to ask you at the harbor. Could you send me a copy of your book when it’s done? I’ll pay you, too. Then I would know how to spell all of your “little lovelies’s” names! Or would it be too risky, because of all that memory, not-a-wizard business? Do you think those government people are going to keep track of me to make sure I’m all back to normal?_

_Write back soon!_

_Sincerely,_

_Jacob_

\- - - - -

_Jacob –_

_Occamy has two c’s. I did come back home to quite a change – it completely slipped my mind that I’d given up my flat when I left and the new renter thought I was trying to break in and nearly called the Muggle police. But actually, you’re right that I’m pleased with the change, because now I have a flat next door to a very nice Muggle woman with five cockatoos, and I’ve discovered that I quite like cockatoos. Now, I know you were joking about the sweets but you don’t have to give me a thing in return, really, and for that matter I’ll give you a copy of_ Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them _for absolutely no charge. And no, it shouldn’t be a problem for you to have a wizard book in your home. The MCUSA may be harsh about Muggles but they probably have larger issues to deal with – and I trust you to be properly discreet. The mooncalves look for you every night when I come to feed them and seem quite sad that you aren’t there, and also Pickett’s currently sitting on my shoulder nosing in while I write and wants to say hello. Everyone else is doing well – oh, but for the murtlap, who’s got something of a cold. I know you and Georgie didn’t get off to the best of starts but he’s really very miserable and I’ll start to worry if one of the potions doesn’t take soon. And that’s really all, except that I saw a vendor selling raisin buns the other day and thought of you._

_Yours,_

_Newt_

\- - - - -

_Dear Newt,_

_Wow, what a welcome you had! I laughed out loud when I read about the guy in your old place. And I can see why you like the new place. I’ve always liked birds. You know, I never thought that you might live near Muggles. What’s it like having to hide it all the time? Is it hard? Has anyone every found you out? What happens if a Muggle does find out? Sorry about all the questions. I’m just really curious._

_I can’t believe how lucky I’ve been since I met you. I mean, I’m getting so much out of this deal – a free loan, a free book, and a great friend. Thanks. A thousand times thanks._

_It’s funny that the mooncalves missed me, because I kind of miss them. They’re really cute. And you know what, now that I think about it, I think I know why Pickett likes you so much. (Hi, Pickett.) You guys kind of look alike! All tall and thin. And sorry about your murtlap, even though he did bite me. He was probably just scared because I yelled when he popped out and even without that he was expecting to see you._

_Since my last letter I got my loan and bought a place for the bakery. It already has a big professional kitchen in back, so once I get it fixed and fancied up a little I can start business! I sort of feel like I’m in a dream, like there’s no way this is really happening when I’ve wanted it for God knows how long. But that’s how I felt when I met you, too, and that was all real._

_I hope you’re good!_

_Sincerely,_

_Jacob_

\- - - - -

_Jacob –_

_I never mind answering your questions. The Ministry of Magic has a department that maintains our secrecy, and usually they’re the ones who sort a mishap with a Muggle out – because a surprising amount of wizards aren’t skilled in Obliviating and oftentimes the situation is too out-of-control for one wizard to handle. The wizard responsible almost always receives a fine. However, proficient Obliviators tend to skip the paperwork and take care of it themselves. Speaking of which, I’m in a bit of a fix with my neighbor. Three days ago I was talking to one of the cockatoos, named Josephine, while Mrs. Eaves started a kettle, and now Josephine won’t stop repeating, “Josephine. My mum had a hippogriff named Josephine.” I’m not sure what to do about it, though, and Mrs. Eaves is very curious about where she might have heard such a phrase. What’s worse, Josephine repeats it without stop every time she sees me. The only possibility would be to make her forget I said it, and memory modification in non-humans is as of yet entirely unexplored. The last thing I would want to do would be to hurt Josephine. It’d never occurred to me that Pickett looks like me, but I think you may be right about that. Georgie is feeling much better, and I am quite relieved. My book should start printing within a fortnight. I’m glad for your bakery, and I’m glad you’re happy. You deserve it more than anyone._

_Yours,_

_Newt_

\- - - - -

_Dear Newt,_

_Boy, crazy things happen to you all the time, don’t they? Every day I wonder what adventures you might be having. All I really do is sleep at night, eat three times a day, and bake. Oh, Kowalski’s Quality Baked Goods is now open for business! Three days it’s been open now. I was worried no one would come at first, but plenty of people said they saw the advertisement I put in the newspaper. Mostly everyone likes the pastries, too. It’s really encouraging. I’ve been baking for years but until now no one’s ever wanted to try my stuff. ~~Not even~~_

_So, have you taken care of your cockatoo problem? It must be nerve wracking to have to hide your magic all the time. It’s too bad that Muggles and wizards can’t just live together and get along._

_Anyway, that’s good about Georgie and great about your book! I’m excited to see what it’s like. I’m starting to suspect that what I saw in your suitcase is only the half of it. You’re one the most crazy, amazing people I’ve ever met._

_I can’t wait to hear from you again, pal!_

_Sincerely,_

_Jacob_

\- - - - -

Jacob opened his letterbox, just barely hoping. Nope. Nothing, again. It usually took a week, maybe nine days, for Newt’s letters to arrive, but it’d been two weeks since Jacob sent his last. He was starting to think that maybe being back in England where he belonged had made Newt realize that he had no reason to bother with some American who couldn’t even do magic. Every day Jacob had tried to quell his disappointment when he peered in the letterbox and saw it empty, but each day that went by in the same pattern only augmented his fears.

He shook off the thoughts and went to work, where he was always happiest. Even so, it was difficult to stay positive when everything seemed to remind him of Newt – an exotic bird emporium three storefronts down from his, a customer’s blue overcoat, the rain that started to pound the sidewalk on his way home. He lifted his jacket above his head and made a mad dash for his gray, dismal building, sidling into the gray, quiet hallway to escape the gray, rainy skies. With Newt around, everything had happened in bursts of color. Maybe he would never get to live like that again.

He unlocked his door with a heavy sigh. Despite his attempts to protect himself with his coat, water had run down the sides and most of his face and back were soaked.

No sooner had he sat down than a knock rang out at the door. “I’m coming,” he called wearily. He got up and made his way over to open it, expecting a salesperson with a catalog, or maybe his downstairs neighbor complaining again about how he walked like an elephant. Instead, he opened the door and saw the last person he’d expected to see. His mouth dropped open. “Newt?”

He had on his usual jumble of mismatched, baggy clothes, was holding his suitcase in one hand and a brown paper package in the other, and was miraculously dry. A moment later Jacob remembered his nifty umbrella spell. Newt held up the package. “My book’s been printed,” he simply stated, as if that explained everything.

Jacob must have looked a sight, dripping wet with his hair plastered to his forehead, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. His mouth stretched into a wide smile, and before Newt could say anything else he was squeezing him in a bone-crushing hug.

It was still raining outside, but the world looked a little less gray.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Many complicated decisions are made. And yet, at their foundations they are simply decisions to follow the most natural course of action.

“Say, can you check the clock?”

“It’s three past noon.”

“Really? Oh, damnit!” Jacob dashed to the oven to retrieve his scones, and Newt picked up the icing knife he’d dropped and used his wand to siphon the dust off. “Why didn’t the timer go off?” Jacob wondered aloud. “But it’s only been two minutes, they might still be good…” Newt wasn’t quite paying attention when Jacob hissed, “Shit, ow!”

Newt turned around. Half the scones were on wire cooling racks, half were still on the tray, and Jacob was rubbing the side of his palm and wincing. Newt crossed the room and took hold of his hand to inspect it. The area he’d been clasping was an angry red. “You’ve been burned,” Newt noted.

“It’s fine, I got a first aid kit. I really gotta get these scones off the heat or they’ll get burnt too, can you grab the tannic acid?”

By the time Newt reached the first aid kit Jacob was humming cheerfully. Even when things in the bakery were hectic, he was in his element – Newt could relate to that. He found the bottle labeled “Tannic Acid” and examined it dubiously. “Jacob, did you say ‘tannic acid’?”

“Yeah, just bring it over.”

“Are you quite certain this is a burn remedy?”

Jacob looked up at him. “Of course it is. They used it for burns in the War.”

Newt turned the bottle over in his hand, somewhat aghast. “It’s _acid_.”

“That’s the point, Newt,” Jacob said impatiently. “It dries up the burn to protect it.”

“Protect what?” he asked, incredulous. He shook his head. “Never mind this, I have a salve for minor burns.”

“The tannic acid is fine, you don’t have to –”

“I’ve encountered dragons, Jacob. I know what I’m talking about.” He made for his suitcase. “I can fetch that salve now.”

“What about Henry?”

“He’s out delivering. It’ll only take a moment to pop down and –”

“You’ve had to Obliviate him three times this week already!” Jacob protested.

“I’ll Obliviate him _ten_ times to stop you putting acid on your skin,” Newt countered.

Jacob sighed and threw up his hands. “Okay, fine. Get the magic dragon salve.”

Newt opened the suitcase and descended the steps to his workroom. Two months had passed since he’d arrived in New York. He’d fully intended to visit briefly and return home, but then Jacob offered to let him stay the night and somehow he’d never gotten around to purchasing another transatlantic ticket. Since then, the days had fallen into an easy rhythm. Newt rose early, spent an hour or two with his creatures, and then went with Jacob to the bakery and helped out as well as he could (which, admittedly, wasn’t very well). In the evening they would go back to Jacob’s flat and it would be dinner time – not for Newt, but for the beasts. Jacob always turned up somewhere near the swamp habitat to wheedle him to eat _something_ , and once he’d forced a sandwich into Newt, he walked alongside him lending a hand. The next day, they did it all over again. It felt blissful, wonderful, and peaceful.

However, Newt had begun to occasionally wonder if it was too peaceful. He hadn’t realized how much he craved travel until he leapt for the first opportunity to do it, and now he wasn’t sure he could quit travelling for very long. It had been on a whim – more like an urge – that he decided to take his book to Jacob in person, and he’d enjoyed the ocean journey almost as much as the destination. Lately there was an itch under his skin, a whisper in his ear, pressing him to take flight, and soon. It was comforting to walk through his suitcase, his condensed slice of the biosphere, but he had been to those places and knew their environments like the back of his hand. He wanted to see everything, and so every now and then he’d remember that he’d yet to visit Uruguay, or Greece, and before he knew it he had made a mental plan of how soon he could pack his belongings and be there. 

Of course, that was out of the question. Despite the instinct in him calling for adventure, there was an equally strong instinct that always brought any other thought to a halt: an instinct that simply said, _Jacob_. He wanted very much to just run off, but he couldn’t fathom doing it without Jacob at his side.

That was why, while tending to the graphorns a few days after the scone incident, Newt said, “I think I may have to leave soon.” He glanced at Jacob just in time to see his face fall.

“Oh.” He looked down at the ground, shrugged, and tried to smile. “Yeah, sure. I guess you couldn’t stick around here forever. Nothing to do. You’re too smart for that.”

Newt nodded, not quite registering what he was agreeing with. A pause later he asked, “Would you come with me?”

This time when he looked, Jacob seemed somewhat pained. “Oh, Newt, I – Thanks for offering, but… I can’t leave the bakery. I mean, it’s been my dream forever, and I just got it, and – I’m sure you get it, I just…” He trailed off.

Newt suspected that he had just missed something. “Wait,” he started, “why wouldn’t we bring the bakery with us?”

Jacob looked just as confused as he felt. “How…?”

Newt gestured to the space around them – fabricated, and infinite.

Understanding lit up on Jacob’s face, and he nodded, grinning.

\- - - - -

Jacob was more trepidatious than he’d like to admit about Newt’s big plans. He’d been born and raised in New York City, and all he had ever seen outside of it was the War. And now Newt was talking about “making a quick stop to every country in South America” and Jacob’s head was spinning. Newt said that it would take several days to make the right adjustments to the suitcase, so Jacob tried to continue on as normal, going to the bakery every day and fielding inquiries about why he was all of a sudden relocating, and to where. Newt would come along as always, but instead of helping he’d wait for young Henry to leave the room and immediately go into the suitcase and spend the whole day tinkering. Apparently, it wasn’t just installing an industrial kitchen; he also had to expand the living quarters and build a “condition-adjustable marquee” for Jacob to sell pastries out of. It all sounded very intimidating to Jacob, but Newt seemed glad enough to take on the fresh challenge.

In the end, that was what convinced Jacob that he was making the right decision in going with Newt. It was wonderful having Newt part of his life in New York, but he was listless, restless, and distracted (or, at least, more distracted than he usually was). Jacob wanted him to be happy, the same way he was happy in his bakery. Newt thrived off of constant, drastic change, and he had an intense ardor for learning. Jacob could see it in the varied multitudes of his suitcase, and in his face – focused, and full of light – as he studied his beloved creatures. Jacob wanted to see him look like that all the time.

And to see it, he would have to go with him. Sure, he was nervous, but he trusted that it would be worth it, and that Newt could make anywhere – even Peru or Fiji – feel as familiar as home.

\- - - - -

“Ah!” Newt straightened up, finally holding exactly what he’d been looking for: a rolled up, thick-piled carpet. He let it unfurl to the floor, revealing the green and turquoise design and releasing a foul-smelling cloud of dust.

Jacob, on the other side of the room organizing the drawers Newt had cleared for him, went into a coughing fit.

“Sorry,” Newt said distractedly. He gently set down the other end of the carpet and stepped towards the animal quivering nervously in the center. “Please be as quiet as you can, Jacob. Hullo,” he continued softly, speaking to the slimy blob. It continued to quake in its place, as though it couldn’t decide whether to run and hide. “I’d been wondering where you’d gotten off to, sweet. Now,” he said, scooping up the moldy-looking creature, “we ought to get you back to your nice musty shack. Why ever would you leave it, Annabelle?”

Jacob followed him out to the habitats, and whispered, “Uh, Newt? What the hell is that?”

“A bundimun. Dust-eater. And to think people call them pests and just charm them away, when they’re very agreeable if you only take the time to provide for them.” He gently examined Annabelle as they walked. “You’ve gotten awfully small again, what happened?” he mused.

“That thing eats dirt? Gee, you’d think people would like that.”

“Well, they don’t just eat dirt. They happen to perpetuate rot.”

“So that’s what smelled so bad.”

“Yes, I’m afraid – Oh, dear,” Newt sighed. The shack he’d built for the bundimun was decayed to the point of falling apart. “No wonder you left, darling. Very sorry, my fault.” He transferred Annabelle into Jacob’s palms and started to Vanish the rotted wood.

“She can’t rot _me_ , can she?” Jacob asked nervously as Newt Summoned some scrap wood he had stored.

“Oh, of course not. She’s completely harmless, except to natural fibers such as wood, and, apparently, wool.”

“What was that rug for, anyway?”

“Transportation.” Newt considered whether he should Summon the hammer and nails, too, recalled the time he’d nearly lost an eye doing that, and decided a Sticking Charm should be sufficient.

“Trans – Wait.” Jacob sounded highly suspicious. “Was that… Was that a flying carpet?”

“Yes.”

“Those are real?” he asked in amazement.

“Of course they are. Did you think they were made up?”

Jacob scoffed. “A year ago I thought _magic_ was made up.”

“Right.” Newt was surprised at how often of late he forgot that Jacob was new to this world; he’d become such an integral part of it for Newt. “Alright, then, that should do. Hand her over.” He kept talking to Annabelle as he deposited her in the newly erected shack, complete with Summoned dust. “I didn’t realize how very fast you could finish with this, love. Don’t worry, you won’t have to go running off looking for food again. Mum will check on you in a week, yes?”

“Boy,” Jacob said when they’d left Annabelle behind, “you’ll find a reason to love anything, won’t you?”

“I don’t think I need a reason. They’re all simply remarkable, just by being themselves.”

“Yeah, I guess they are. So… flying carpet?”

Newt interpreted that as a query about how that came to be their chosen method of transportation. “Side-Along Apparition is only useful if you have a destination in mind. For us, every inch of this trip is a destination. The same goes for Floo Powder or Portkeys, except with the added complication of their use being highly regulated by most magical governments and the stickiness of travelling across national borders. Muggles can’t control brooms, and they are only ever made for one passenger. I have a herd of winged Aethonan horses, but it would be cruel to make them carry us around the globe. Then I remembered I’d purchased the carpet in Persia. It seats four, and only requires a magical operator.”

“Huh. You sure know a lot about… well… everything.”

“Well, I’m not entirely certain I’ll know how to patch up Annabelle’s spot in the carpet, but I can try. Then we can head south.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made the end comments dramatic and silly in the last chapter so I’ll do them properly now!  
> First of all, I’m overwhelmed by all the nice comments you guys have left me. There’s so few people invested in this ship that I kind of feel like I have the entire Newt/Jacob fandom cheering me on, small as it may be. So just thanks so much for all the support and for reading and sharing this experience with me. Thanks to all of you!!!  
> Also, does anyone remember if Jacob’s bakery assistant had a name? I have the script on hold at the library but there’s no telling when it’ll come and I can’t remember if Jacob called him by a name. So for now he’s Henry.  
> Anyway, I have a printed map of the globe and a route for them, based on the creatures Newt already has and where they’re from, and the creatures he eventually gets from places he hasn’t yet been according to the actual book Fantastic Beasts. Yay, unnecessary amounts of research!  
> Welp, that’s all! Comments are much appreciated!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Newt learns two new things about Jacob: he can’t hold his alcohol, and he’s been very unlucky in love.

“Are you sure this is safe?”

“Quite sure.”

“You always say that, then you always give me a helmet, then I always end up needing it, and I’m still supposed to trust you,” Jacob complained halfheartedly, tightening the leather strap around his chin.

“I’m wearing one, too,” Newt pointed out. “We’re going to be hurtling through the air at about forty miles per hour. It’s a sensible precaution.”

“In case we fall off?” he asked, a little worried to hear the answer.

“In case of natural projectiles,” Newt corrected. “No, it’s highly unlikely that we’d fall off.”

“Natural projectiles. That’s comforting,” Jacob muttered.

It was three in the morning, and they were on the roof of Jacob’s building. Newt had said they would be able to fly in the day sometimes, but only in unpopulated areas, and New York certainly did not fit that qualification.

Newt made a funny motion with his hands and murmured something that coaxed the carpet off the surface of the roof. And to Jacob’s amazement, there it stayed, suspended about a foot above the shingles with a quiet energy that Jacob could feel, that led him to believe it was waiting. Next Newt placed his suitcase gently on the carpet, pointed his wand, then tested to see if it would come off. It didn’t budge.

“Right,” he said, straightening up. “Now for the Disillusionment Charm.”

“The what?” Jacob asked, but it was no use; Newt had come forward and tapped him on the head with his wand. Jacob felt something wet and cold run down the sides of his face, his neck, and across his whole body. He patted his skin, but it felt completely dry. He looked down and found that his torso had disappeared and his legs were going fast. “Newt?” he asked cautiously. “What the hell did you just do to me?”

Newt, however, had disappeared as well. Jacob still heard him say, “I’ve camouflaged you.”

“Where are you?”

He felt a hand on his arm and realized that he could see Newt’s face inches from his, the color of the night that surrounded them. “It’s alright, it’ll wear off,” Newt said. He was still standing awfully close.

Jacob stepped back, inexplicably feeling nerves flutter in his stomach. He wasn’t _that_ anxious about the carpet, was he? “Oh. Okay.”

Newt, near-invisible, and his wand, comically suspended midair, returned to the hovering carpet. Soon that had been camouflaged too, and Newt had climbed onto it. Jacob could feel him watching him expectantly. “Well?”

“Let me get this straight,” Jacob said slowly. “You want me to sit on something that I can’t even see and that shouldn’t be floating at all.”

“It’s a magic carpet, of course it should be floating. And if you look down just remember that it isn’t the real ground you see, just an imitation of it.”

Jacob sighed, shook his head, and approached the carpet. With a guiding hand from Newt he climbed on, certain that it would collapse under their combined weight any second. It didn’t, though, and Newt announced that they were all ready to go. “Wait, how do I hold on?” Jacob interjected.

“Grip the edges. Or put your arms around my waist, if you’d prefer.”

The latter option sounded more secure, so that was what Jacob did.

“Ready?”

Jacob nodded, bracing himself for his first magic carpet ride. “Yeah.”

And with an upward jerk of Newt’s wrists, they shot up into the sky, almost vertical. Newt leveled out the angle, and then New York City was a constellation of lights below, and they were soaring through the air much faster than Jacob had expected. He let out a yell, though he wasn’t sure if it was out of terror or amazement or a little bit of both. Then he laughed, the sound getting carried away by the wind. _They were on a flying carpet._ Furthermore, they were on their way to adventure, and Jacob could feel Newt’s high spirits, and he couldn’t help but be just as elated as his companion – no, surely his closest friend.

\- - - - -

Newt squinted, scanning the ground far below. Hours had passed, dawn had arrived, and they needed to get out of the sky. He wanted very much to explore some of the forests they were passing over, but first he had to find a populated area close to the woodlands. “Aha,” he said quietly when such an area appeared.

“What?” Jacob responded, slightly groggy.

“We’ll be landing shortly.”

Jacob let out a sigh of relief. “Good.”

Newt brought them lower, aiming for a wheat field at the edge of the forest he was interested in. From there they could walk to the town he’d spotted, probably in about fifteen minutes if his guess was right. As they rapidly descended Jacob held onto him tighter. “Don’t worry,” Newt said automatically. He’d noticed that Jacob often did worry, but usually stopped if Newt reassured him.

They landed with a soft, rustling _whump_ in the green stalks of wheat. “Where are we?” Jacob asked as Newt rolled up the carpet.

“Well, we’ve been flying south. Other than that I don’t quite know.” He decided that if they were going to be using the carpet so often it would be convenient to have it under the stairs of the workroom, and stepped down briefly to position it there. He came back up and closed the suitcase. “Are you up for a bit of a walk?”

Jacob was in the middle of stretching out his limbs and wincing slightly. “Are you kidding? I never want to kneel again.”

So they trudged through the wheat towards the road – or so Newt thought. But when an hour had elapsed and they were still looking at wheat stalks, he began to suspect he had gotten a bit turned around when they landed. He’d never been great shakes at navigation.

“Hey, Newt?” Jacob started warily. “Maybe we should walk in a different direction. Just an idea. I mean, if we got out of this wheat then we would at least be able to see where we’re going, and –”

“Yes, I think you’re right.”

In the end, it was mid-morning by the time they reached civilization. Newt apologized profusely, but Jacob just waved it off and said that at least they’d gotten to see the sky change color. “The sky just isn’t like that in New York, you know? I mean, sometimes it is, but never so nice.”

Newt nodded, appreciating Jacob’s lenience and cheer. He’d already shown – as Newt had trusted would prove true – that he was going to be a wonderful person to travel with.

“So, what are we looking for, anyway?”

“Well, first we’re looking for a place to stay.” Soon after he found such a place. “Oh, there! ‘The Blue Bullfrog, Bar and Inn’. How does that sound?”

“Wait, where is it?” Jacob turned his head, searching both sides of the street.

Newt pointed. “Just up here. Don’t you see it?”

“I see a shoe store and a model train shop.”

Those were the storefronts on either side of the Blue Bullfrog, and suddenly Newt realized something. “Oh! Sorry, forgot.” He took Jacob’s hand. “There. Do you see it now?”

“Holy smokes,” he said after a beat, amazed. “I blinked and there it is. Boy, is there anywhere you guys aren’t hiding?”

\- - - - -

“Shall I get us drinks?”

Jacob grinned. “Yeah, sure. Why not celebrate?”

Newt nodded and left their table to go to the bar. Jacob was happy because they’d made quite a bit of money selling pastries in the middle of the town – which they’d now discerned to be Allentown, Pennsylvania. Jacob speculated that it was because of Newt’s eye-catching pink and yellow tent that they’d had so many visitors, but Newt personally thought it had more to do with the intoxicating smell of the pastries, and Jacob – open, friendly, and trustworthy, even at a glance. Either way, the first venture of Kowalski’s Quality _Traveling_ Baked Goods was a definite success, and so back at the Blue Bullfrog they were getting drinks.

However, on his way to order the drinks Newt noticed something peculiar: moving, speckled clumps, attached to patrons’ unattended wands. He knelt down next to a man’s chair to peer at whatever was on the wand hanging loosely from his hand. Chizpurfles, just as he’d suspected. The tiny crablike forms ate away at the wood of the wand, climbing over each other just like any swarm of insects.

He realized the man with the wand had stopped talking to his drinking companion and was looking at Newt questioningly. Newt muttered an apology and stood up, continuing his course to the bar. He ordered two drinks, pointed out the table Jacob sat at, and then said to the bartender, “Sir, I hate to tell you this, but –”

“Then don’t.”

Newt faltered, not sure whether the man was serious. He plundered on, pinking around the ears. “You’ve got a chizpurfle infestation.”

The bartender squinted. “Chiz- _what_?”

“Chizpurfles. They’re parasites, they –”

He interrupted again, looking alarmed. “I got some sort of parasite on me?”

“Oh, _you’re_ not infested,” Newt amended quickly. “The entire bar is, that’s all. I can get them out, if you’d like,” he offered. “You probably ought to, eventually. They nibble wands, chizpurfles.”

The bartender seemed doubtful. “And you are?”

Newt stuck out his hand. “Newt Scamander. Magizooligist. You may have heard of my book, _Fantastic_ –”

He didn’t wait for him to finish, instead turning his head and shouting through the kitchen door behind the bar. “Hey, Joe! British fella here says we got chiz-purples! Name’s ‘Slimy Salamander’ or something daft like that.”

After that another interjecting American wizard – the owner of the Blue Bullfrog, presumably – came and questioned Newt, and Newt stumbled his way through another explanation, and finally he was given permission to set up a trap and promised free room and board in return, meals and drinks included.

In his haste to prepare the trap he went straight up to the quarters where he and Jacob were boarded to brew a harmless potion. He left it there on the floor, bubbling enticingly, and conjured an invisible barrier that would allow the hungry chizpurfles to get in, but would keep them from getting back out after they drank their fill of magic. He knew the Blue Bullfrog’s owner assumed he was going to exterminate the chizpurfles, but he justified that as long as they were removed from the building it didn’t matter whether he actually did so. They would be interesting to study and easy to care for – as long as he kept them away from his augurey.

By the time he’d finished with the trap he remembered that he was supposed to be having drinks with Jacob. He returned to the bar area to find Jacob with his arms resting on the table and his head resting on his arms, quietly humming a vague melody. He glanced up at Newt’s approach, although he didn’t quite lift his head.

“Newt!” he exclaimed, blinking and smiling dazedly. “Newton Scamander, my best friend! I haven’t seen you in _days_.”

Newt ducked his head and tried not to laugh. “Hours, Jacob. You haven’t seen me in hours.”

“They were ‘specially long hours,” Jacob said decisively. “I had to drink your drink.”

“I can see that.” Newt sat down across from him, highly amused. “Is that all you drank? Just those two?”

Jacob thought about it. “Mm, no. The guy came over and said – What did he say? Oh, yeah, he said you were doing him a service, and he gave me a refill. Or two, or maybe three.” He settled back down onto his arms and grew silent. At last, he said, “You’re so nice to have around. You make me feel like… like, uh… you make me feel good. Happy, and… like I’m somebody.”

“That’s nice to hear, Jacob,” Newt started, but Jacob kept going.

“I had a girlfriend, a, a fiancé, and she never made me feel like that. I liked her but she made me feel bad. She made me feel dumb, and… and worthless. Like a nobody.”

“Oh, I didn’t know you had a –”

“We were s’posed to get married!” Jacob moaned, suddenly tearful. “We were gonna get married and she called it off, she – and then I felt even more bad.” He raised his head and looked at Newt. “But then I met you, and you changed it for me. You magicked it back to good.” He hummed the same melody from before, louder and with more emotion. “That’s the song we always danced to! I don’t remember the words, but it was a good-feeling song, and now whenever I hear it I feel bad again. We should have a song, too, you and me, so I could hear it and feel good.”

Newt groped for something to say. All he managed was, “Uh…” before Jacob launched into a new line of thought.

“And then Queenie! Oh, Queenie, Queenie.” He shook his head, morose. “I really liked her, I really wanted to be with her, and I didn’t hardly know her! She had short blond hair too, and I still missed Mildred. I’m sorry, Newt,” – and he was really starting to cry – “I was all over her for a while when I shoulda been all over you – doing things with you. You never really liked her much.”

No, Newt hadn’t liked Queenie all that much. He had found her presumptuous, and it had bothered him the way she could steal Jacob’s attention with little more than a glance. But now wasn’t the time to drag that up; now was the time to do something about Jacob, who had put his head back in his arms and was sniffing pitifully. He placed a hand on Jacob’s shoulder. “It’s alright,” he recited lamely. “Everything’s alright.”

Jacob shook his head, somberly certain that everything was not alright.

“You’re here with me now,” Newt tried. “You’re doing things with me now. For the rest of the foreseeable future, I might add. And we can have a song, like you said, and I promise I’ll never make you feel worthless. Mostly because you never _will_ be worthless to me.” Jacob didn’t say anything, so Newt just sighed. “It’s been a long day. Do you want to turn in?”

Jacob groaned unhappily, which Newt decided was affirmative.

“Alright, up you get.” He heaved Jacob out of his chair and guided him to the staircase that led up to the inn. There, they ran into a bit of a problem involving balance, and Newt settled to just levitate Jacob up the stairs. He collapsed onto the dingy sheets of one of the inn beds and started snoring the minute they got in the room, so Newt left him there, making sure to drape the blanket from the other bed over him before retiring to the suitcase. It was a shame, he mused as he got ready for bed, that Jacob had been so miserable at one time. Of course, now just about everything was different – his job, his scenery, with whom he kept company. Still, Newt had found out quite a bit about Jacob, and he would be sure to always keep it in mind and always let Jacob know how proud he was of him – how proud he should be of himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Scandal! Outrage! I broke form! Don’t worry, there’ll be lots of Jacob in the next chapter, I promise!  
> Just so you know, I spent an hour or so trying to come up with a name for the Blue Bullfrog. Some other possibilities included the Twisted Cat (which seemed a little overzealous in the ‘this is a place for wizards’ respect), the Red Hornet (which sounds like a college football mascot), the Dusty Dolphin (which sounds like a gay bar), the Grey Goose (which I realized is a brand of vodka), and the Slimy Salamander (which I’m very excited to have gotten to use anyway). Ah, obsessing over unimportant details.  
> It also delights me to inform you that from the very beginning my outline on this chapter included the phrase “and then he levitates him up the stairs because he’s too sloppy to walk”  
> As always, half-coherent screams of delight will be sent to any and all commenters!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fairies are found, a song is picked, and Newt gets trapped in bread dough.

Jacob rubbed his temple wearily, trudging along behind Newt, who was bouncing rather than walking across the pine needle-strewn forest floor. He’d woken up with a headache (his own fault, he knew), and it had yet to go away. Still, he hadn’t wanted to miss out on Newt’s expedition into the Pennsylvanian woods. “What exactly are we looking for?”

“Oh, anything,” Newt called back airily, several paces ahead of Jacob. “We could find doxies – though maybe not, as it’s a bit warm for them; fairies are more likely… Oh, perhaps flobberworms or horklumps… Mokes, if we can manage to spot them… Could be jarveys, knarls… Maybe even bowtruckles! I’m not sure if they live in North America, but with all these trees around, anything’s possible.”

Jacob furrowed his brow, trying to keep all the names straight. “What if there aren’t any at all? What if this forest only has regular beasts?”

“Highly doubt it. I mean,” Newt stopped and turned to face Jacob while he caught up, “it’s beautiful here! If I were a beast I’d want to live here.”

Jacob laughed, slightly out of breath. “I think you wanna live here even as a person.”

“Possibly.” They kept walking and Newt jumped back to what he’d been saying before. “Besides, even if there isn’t anything magical here, the ‘regular beasts’ are fantastic ones, too.”

Jacob glanced at him. “You really mean that, don’t you.”

“Of course I do.”

Yes, of course he did. Jacob knew that Newt didn’t say things he didn’t mean. He smiled and looked around for – well, he didn’t really know what to look for, but nonetheless he kept his eyes open for anything fantastic.

Newt stepped off the path and craned his neck to see a low-hanging tree branch. “Oh, is that a – No, an ordinary stick bug. Ah, well. Hop on out, Pickett, and I can make comparisons,” he said to his lapel.

While Newt settled himself cross-legged on the earth, whipping out a quill and paper to sketch his observations, Jacob inspected a rotting tree trunk a few yards away. He lifted a piece of bark, peering underneath. It was full of brown, slimy creatures, laying across each other and pulsating slightly. “Ew.”

“What have you got?” Newt asked, suddenly at his shoulder. Jesus, he was full to bursting with energy today.

“Slugs, looks like.”

Newt took a look. “Not slugs,” he said triumphantly, “flobberworms!” He reached in and pulled out one of the flobberworms, dangling it at face level. “See, no horns. That’s something very interesting about flobberworms; there’s no difference between the two ends. They can eat out of either, and both produce mucus. It’s a marvelous defense mechanism, to have two heads, two tails, all in the same place. It would confuse any predator!”

It was times like these – when Newt ate breakfast blindly, nose in a book, or when his hair stuck up at every unnatural angle after being trapped under one of his protective helmets, or when he sat in the dirt to draw stick bugs and held up strange worms while exclaiming over them with vehement interest – that Jacob could imagine what a curious, smart, goofy kid he must have been.

It was very endearing. Unfortunately, it didn’t at all help Jacob to figure out what to say besides that as far as he could tell the only interesting thing about the flobberworms was how disgusting they managed to be with so little effort. In the end, he left it at, “Oh.”

“And who knows what great uses their mucus could have! I’d better keep a few, try some things out.”

So they continued on, tromping through the woods looking at anything they could find.

 Mostly, they found mushrooms and insects, and other tiny critters. Still, Newt was just excited

about them as he got about giant, deadly African leopards that he’d inexplicably named Rosie.

Around midday they finally made a remarkable find – or, at least, a find that wasn’t flobberworms. “Jacob, look,” Newt breathed, his voice full of wonder. He gently lifted a leaf of the plant he was examining. The underside was covered in white, protruding ovals with a certain pearly sheen to them. “Fairy eggs!”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

“Woah.”

Newt nodded enthusiastically. “Can you go down to the workroom and fetch a clay pot, about…” he measured with his hands around the base of the plant with the fairy eggs, “thirty centimeters in diameter? Oh, and a trowel. I want to see these beauties hatch.”

Once the plant was potted, Newt combed the area over for other signs of fairies.

“Look for larvae,” he directed. “They sleep on flowers and are usually bright blue. And silvery, iridescent cocoons, and the fairies themselves.”

They found the larvae – Newt exclaiming over the fact that some of them were actually bright green – and the cocoons, and Newt collected samples accordingly, but no actual fairies appeared.

Finally Newt sighed. “They’re probably hiding somewhere to tease us.” He raised his voice to recite, “Oh, how I wish I had a beautiful fairy crown, with only the prettiest fluttering wings!”

Jacob watched, astonished, as about a dozen fairies appeared almost instantly, flying from treetops and hidden nooks in rocks to settle in a bright, shimmery ring around Newt’s forehead.

“Excellent! Good show, little fellows.” Newt didn’t bother to stow the fairies away before they walked on. “They’ll stay put,” he said confidently. “Fairies may be silly creatures but they love to show off. And this is by far the most attractive fairy crown I’ve ever had,” he added, encouraging the fairies. They buzzed excitedly.

“Can fairies talk?” Jacob asked, watching them with interest.

“Oh, of course not. They haven’t much intelligence.”

“Huh. Fairies always talk in stories.”

Newt seemed surprised. “Muggles have stories with fairies in?”

“Yeah. They’re called ‘fairy tales’, actually.”

“Will you tell me one?”

So Jacob told him the story of Cinderella. He paid rapt attention, fascinated. When the story was done he bombarded Jacob with questions.

“If the fairy was Cinderella’s godmother, why hadn’t she taken custody of her?”

Jacob frowned, thinking it through. “I dunno. I’ve never thought about that.”

“That’s just like a fairy,” Newt said with a nod. “All glamour, no responsibility. And she was the height of an ordinary person?”

“Yeah.”

“And she had a wand?”

“Yeah?” Jacob wasn’t sure what Newt was getting at.

“Then she wasn’t a fairy at all!” Newt proclaimed. “She was a witch!”

“I guess, but witches are usually evil. In the stories, at least.”

“Really? Do you know any of the stories with witches?”

Jacob ended up telling fairy tales for rest of the afternoon while Newt poked holes in them and puzzled over the inaccuracies. They lost track of time and ended up trying to navigate out of the woods in semi-darkness, by wand-light and fairy-light. At the edge of the forest Newt told the fairies that if they hopped into the suitcase they would find some woods where they could play and do whatever they wanted. They obliged, buzzing away to each other.

Under the street lamps, Jacob could see the grime that had gathered on Newt’s knees and hands and a bit on his face. He rambled on about how he wanted to find some fairy tales in writing to study more closely, and how he couldn’t wait to see how many chizpurfles he’d caught at the inn. Jacob smiled to himself. With Newt around, it was hard not to see beauty in everything – from fairies to forests to friends, covered in dirt and full of joy.

\- - - - -

“Let’s see…” Newt mused aloud, twirling his quill in his hand. “I’ll need a Refilling cauldron for the chizpurfles. Of course, it isn’t that simple, because I don’t want them to overeat. I might have to make a full new spell that meets the specifics.” He noted that down. “And I already have places for the fairies, and I’m sure if I look in the bowtruckle forest I can find rotting wood and make a nice ditch for the flobberworms by that stream for the British beasts. You want to go down later and help collect the wood?”

“Sure,” Jacob said. He eyed Newt’s plate, barely touched and growing cold. “Are you gonna eat dinner or am I just gonna find out that you ate half a loaf of bread at two in the morning tomorrow?”

Newt waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. “I haven’t time to eat. I’ve got to make sure the new creatures are acclimated before we travel on.” He kept jotting down notes, and his ear caught a fragment of melody coming from the bar’s phonograph.

_Oh, we ain't got a barrel of money_

_Maybe we're ragged and funny_

_But we'll travel along_

_Singing a song side by side_

“Maybe this can be our song,” he remarked, scribbling a query of exactly how many fairies he had. He’d have to take a brief census, and the fairies would undoubtedly actively seek to make it difficult. What method of control would make them the least petulant?

“Wait, what?” Jacob sounded slightly incredulous, and Newt nodded without looking up.

“Our song. You said we ought to have a song.” He also had to try to coax the cocoons to attach to a new tree, which might be tricky. Maybe he’d look up various charms to fall back on if a Sticking Charm didn’t take.

“When exactly did I say that?” Jacob asked, his tone disbelieving.

“Just last night.”

Jacob let out a soft _‘oh’_ of recognition. “I don’t really remember saying that,” he admitted, somewhat sheepish.

“Well, we don’t need a song.” Newt left it at that, writing a reminder to water the fairy egg plant when he put it in the ground. However, he couldn’t help but smile when he heard Jacob humming the song absently while preparing breakfast a few days later.

\- - - - -

Newt’s hands were stuck. He tried to lift them, but the dough shackling them in place was immovably adhered to the work table. “Jacob, how – What –”

“Newt, what did you _do_?” Jacob rushed over, gazing at the mess of Newt’s hands in horror.

“I’m stuck,” Newt said needlessly.

Jacob clicked his tongue. “I know what it is, you didn’t use any flour. Didn’t I tell you to use flour?” He rummaged around for the tin of flour and brought it to Newt’s station.

“I don’t think you mentioned it; no.”

“I guess I thought everyone knew that.” Jacob shook a scoop of flour onto the sticky dough and coated his hands in it before plunging in to rescue Newt’s own hands. “Here, I’ll help you get it off.”

Five minutes and about a cup of flour later, Newt was free.

“And you remember how I said you should knead?” Jacob checked.

“Yes, it’s sort of like…” Newt hesitated and made a vague motion with his hands.

Jacob sighed. “Here, I can show you.” He stood just behind Newt and put his hands on top of Newt’s, guiding him in working the dough. “You just push it with the heels of your palms, and pull it back towards you.”

“Oh, I see now.”

“And again. Push, then pull. Push, then pull. Push, then pull. And now we turn.” Together their hands picked up the dough and rotated it about ninety degrees.

“You’re very good at this,” Newt noted as they repeated the pattern.

“My grandma taught me how,” he responded cheerily. “Just like this. I was seven, I think, and we were making lemon icebox cookies. It feels automatic now.”

Newt didn’t say anything, content to just listen. Jacob often had quite a lot to say, if he was only given enough time to say it. And sure enough, he went on.

“I remember I tried to make them again for her birthday a couple months later, all by myself. I got out the big recipe book and made sure I had all the ingredients and checked the measurements twice and everything. And then I nicked my finger slicing the lemons. I kept going anyway. And lemon juice, it really stings in a cut, you know? Grandma found me in the kitchen, covered in flour and stuff, juicing lemons and trying not to cry.”

Newt smiled. “You were very determined.”

“Yeah,” Jacob agreed with a small laugh. “I wanted to make her proud of me.”

“I’m sure she was, Jacob. You’re remarkable.”

When Jacob answered, he sounded somewhat emotionally overcome. “…Oh.”

“I mean it,” Newt insisted. He wasn’t one to say things he didn’t mean.

They passed the rest of their time kneading in silence, and Newt felt content. It was nice to be so close to Jacob, working in unison. It was even nicer to be doing something that he knew Jacob loved, and to hear his stories about why it was so important to him.

“I think it’s ready to finish rising,” Jacob said in time, stepping from behind Newt and pinching the dough. “Hm. Might be a little overworked because of that accident earlier. But other than that, you did a great job.”

Newt ducked his head, pleased. “You did most of the work.”

“But you helped,” Jacob asserted, transferring the ball of dough to a bowl and covering it with a dishcloth. “And you let me teach you.”

While they were clearing the counter, Newt asked, “How does leaving tomorrow sound to you? The beasts are all ready.”

“Sounds great. Where are we going next?”

“I thought we’d just keep heading south, then veer west towards Central America.”

“And then?”

“South America, the Pacific Islands, South Asia, the Middle East to Russia, the Mediterranean coast, and Spain and France,” Newt recited. He’d put a great deal of thought into their route.

“Wow. I guess Pennsylvania’s just the beginning, huh?”

“That’s the general plan.”

Jacob looked pensive, then said confidently, “Well, I’m ready for it. Especially since we’re going together.”

Newt rather had to agree.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Newt in a fairy crown, anyone? That’s one of my favorite parts about this chapter, honestly. If I had more artistic prowess I’d draw it.  
> Also, what the heck is it with me and all the Jacob feels? I really wasn’t planning any of this and it wrecks me when I come up with such sad and sweet scenes for him. I guess I just feel like he had a lot more to say than he got to in the movie and I’m lowkey enraged that he got conveniently written out of any further plots.  
> (Icebox cookies weren’t a thing when Jacob was a kid but shhhhh his grandma invented them or something)  
> From here on out, the distances they travel while we’re not looking are probably going to increase A LOT, just so you know.  
> Oh, and if anyone wants to listen to Newt and Jacob’s song it’s here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4T-wH7ZK5w (LISTEN TO IT IT’S SO JACOB AND NEWT THAT I CAN’T HANDLE IT)   
> That’s all! Thanks for reading!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The journey continues through America.

“I spy something white.”

“That silo over there?”

“No.”

“Um… Ooh, the clouds?”

“No, but you’re close.”

“Oh, okay. The… The, um… Newt, there’s nothing else white in the sky!”

“Yes, there is.”

“What?”

“The sun.”

“The sun isn’t white, it’s – Oh. I guess it kind of is.”

“Your turn.”

“I spy something… gray.”

“That wire fence.”

“What wire – How can you see so good? No.”

“The roof of the barn next to the silo.”

“Yeah. Your turn.”

“I spy something blue.”

“The sky?”

“No.”

“I don’t see any other blue.”

“Look to your left.”

“Is it the reflection of the sky in that pond?”

“Yes.”

“Boy, you don’t miss a trick, do you. Okay, I spy something…” Jacob was cut off when the carpet suddenly took a sharp dive. He shrieked and clung to Newt, yelling over the whistling wind, “Newt, _what the hell are you doing_?”

Newt, of course, didn’t bother to answer. They plummeted towards the earth and skidded to a bumpy stop in a cow pasture. Jacob got jostled into Newt’s back and took both of them down.

“Oof!”

Newt just wriggled out from under him, throwing a quick, “Sorry,” over his shoulder, and crept towards what had made land him so suddenly. “Look,” he said in the hushed tone reserved for rare and beautiful creatures – which was really, in his eyes, all creatures.

Jacob propped himself up on his elbows and looked. About five yards away were two creatures, scuffling in a whirl of brown fur, both of them yelling obscene things. “What is it?”

“A jarvey and a gnome. I’ve never seen them face off in person,” he said, mesmerized.

“So what’s going on?”

“Jarveys are predators of gnomes. This is a matter of life or death.”

So they watched – Newt fascinated, Jacob slightly alarmed – as the jarvey and the gnome attacked each other: with bites and scratches on one side, kicks and punches on the other, and insults on both.

Eventually, the brown creature (Was that the jarvey or the gnome? There was no telling with these magic things) pinned the little bald one to the ground, and Newt exclaimed, “Oh, he’s got him!”

“Jesus Christ,” Jacob said, horrified, watching as the prevailing creature immediately killed the other one and started to drag it away by the leg.

Newt, meanwhile, was fumbling for a piece of paper. “The neck,” he muttered, scribbling away. “Jarveys go for the neck to kill. I never knew that.” He finished his note, gathered the carpet and case as fast as he could, and gestured for Jacob to get up. “Let’s follow him and we can see his habitat,” he said eagerly.

So they followed, across the pasture to its overgrown edges, where the jarvey disappeared into a tunnel in the ground with its prey.

“Excellent!” Newt said, excited. “Let’s look for more holes. And then, the gnomes. It’ll be interesting to study the differences between their digging styles. Maybe I’d better make some sketches.” He dropped to the ground, examining the hole as he continued to think aloud. “Hm, that could take some time... Besides, they’ll both be difficult to capture for closer observations. Oh, what if we could get a few to bring along? I think I’d want to breed them, because they’re both very violent animals – they wouldn’t last long if it were just one or two. How does staying here for a few days sound?”

Jacob registered that the last bit was directed at him. “A few _days_?” he repeated incredulously. They’d only been there for five minutes, and he’d already gotten covered in wet grass and witnessed the very bloody death of a gnome. He had other qualms, though. “Newt, this is a _farm_. People _live here_. And I don’t think they’re wizards. Don’t you think they’re gonna notice two guys camping out in their pasture?”

Newt dismissed the concern with a wave of his hand. “We can take appropriate precautions. I’ve got protective spells set up on the suitcase. They’ll keep Muggles, curious animals, and anyone else far away.”

“Do you even know where we are?”

“Not a clue,” Newt said, and left it at that. He never really seemed too fussed with location, unless he wanted to record some new beast’s whereabouts.

So Jacob reluctantly agreed. “A few days” stretched into a week and a half, and Jacob learned about alternative diets for jarveys, how gnomes’ fingers had developed for digging, the amount of slightly dangerous work that Newt went through to further expand his suitcase, and that arguing with a gnome was a fruitless endeavor but Newt was willing to try anyway and almost seemed to enjoy his every unruffled statement being retorted with “You’re a smelly dung-brain!”

Despite his initial misgivings, Jacob really liked staying in one place for a while. He liked the gnomes (even though they had an ongoing campaign to kick his ankles until it brought him to the ground) and the jarveys (even though they only ever referred to him as “bastard”), and he liked cooking and baking and bickering fondly with Newt over whether he’d eaten enough today, and he liked that he was starting to feel at home in Newt’s suitcase.

Of course, it didn’t last long. Before he knew it Newt had announced that they were ready to take off again, with a few gnomes and jarveys in tow. Jacob wasn’t really too disappointed. At least they would be taking ‘home’ with them.

\- - - - -

Newt fidgeted in his seat and tried to look engaged in the current conversation, though his mind was elsewhere. Eventually he couldn’t help himself and nudged Jacob to get his attention. “Do you reckon,” he asked in an undertone, “I should nip down and check on Shiny?”

Shiny was the clabbert they’d picked up a month ago in Georgia, where clabberts were native beasts. Newt found her to be very charming and affectionate if given a chance to warm up, but Jacob tended to avoid her – apparently, a big, grinning mouth full of pointed teeth on the face of a monkey with green scales was “creepy”.

“Nah, everything’s probably fine,” Jacob said, draining the rest of his glass.

Newt caught him by the shoulder before he could turn back to their drinking companions – a rowdy group of Muggles whom Jacob had made friends with the day before in his pastry tent. “But Jacob,” he said urgently, “she looked just about ready to start a fight with Dougal when we left, and I’ve been thinking that maybe I ought to rearrange just a bit to help with the tension –”

Jacob shushed Newt with a finger pressed against his lips and pushed his ignored mug of beer closer to him. “Help your own tension and try to have a good time! It’s a goddamned holiday!”

It was indeed a holiday. The day before when they’d realized the date, Jacob had watched, aghast, as Newt struggled to decipher which American holiday correlated with the ambiguous ‘the Fourth of July’.

“Um… oh, I think I remember now! It started with, um, pioneers celebrating… Giving thanks for… No wait, that’s in the winter. Um… Flag Day?” he’d offered weakly.

Jacob had shaken his head, saying in bewilderment, “Independence Day.”

“Oh! Right. Right, I knew that,” Newt had said, not even convincing Pickett.

So now they were sat in a dingy basement bar, surrounded by patriots celebrating the creation of their country by breaking one of its federal laws.

Worries about Shiny and Dougal were only part of the reason Newt was anxious to excuse himself. Jacob’s acquaintances couldn’t have been more different from Newt – American rather than British, Muggles rather than wizards – and he felt very out of place.

“Ya know what?” One of them shouted above the din at that very moment. “Ta hell with the Brits. They can kiss my American ass.”

The testimony was met with resounding calls of agreement, and another man chimed in, “I would fight em again, you know? If they ever came back and tried to invade. We’ll organize the troops and fight like it’s 1776. Stab em with bayonets!”

Another cheer, and, “Oh, yeah? Who needs guns? I’d just punch em in the face, the snide, slimy, accent-having bastards!”

“I’ll drink to that!” someone said, and beer sloshed onto the table as everyone clinked glasses. Newt shrank back in his seat a little, thinking that it might be best to avoid speaking for the rest of the night, for fear of his personal safety.

\- - - - -

The morning after the Fourth of July, Jacob woke up in a room of the Muggle inn they were staying at to find Newt and the suitcase nowhere in sight, though upon further investigation he discovered a note pinned to his shirtsleeve in Newt’s near-indecipherable spiky scrawl:

_Jacob –_

_Saw something extraordinary out the window; going to investigate. Will be back before breakfast._

_Yours,_

_Newt_

‘Yours, Newt’. He still closed that way, then. Jacob had always puzzled over that back when they were sending each other letters. In retrospect, he’d perhaps done an unwarranted amount of puzzling over it. It was only a signature, after all. Yet, even now, it seemed like more: sweet, strange, very fitting, and very Newt. Reading ‘Yours, Newt’ had always made Jacob smile, and it still did.

Despite what his note promised, Newt didn’t turn up until well past eleven – covered in dust, carrying his case, and exuding exhilaration. “I’ve found a re’em,” he announced.

“A re’em, huh? What’s that?”

“A golden ox. They’re incredibly rare, yet somehow one just happened to be grazing at the edge of the forest.” He sat down, accepting the toast Jacob had saved for him. “I’ve only heard about them before,” he continued. “They’re more beautiful than I ever could have imagined. At least, Thomas is. He was wary at first, but now we’re getting on. I’ve got him near the mooncalves for now, as they’re both bovines.” He finally lifted the toast to his mouth and began to tear at it, and in lifting his arm exposed the large gash in his torso.

Jacob was up in a flash, kneeling at Newt’s side and gaping at the wound. “ _What the hell happened?_ ”

“Oh! I’d forgotten about that.” Newt had enough sense to sound sheepish.

“Why aren’t you doing anything about it?” Jacob demanded.

“I told you, I forgot. It’s just a scratch,” he insisted. “It barely hurts.”

Jacob forced him to abandon his toast and practically dragged him down to the workroom. “Take off your shirt,” he ordered, “and tell me what to do.”

“Really, I can –”

“Let me _help_ you, stupid.”

Newt sighed, sat down, and peeled off his shirt. “In that drawer by the staircase – no, the one below it – yes, that one – there’s a bottle labeled ‘Essence of Dittany’.”

Jacob rummaged through the drawer and found the bottle. When he returned to Newt he was muttering an incantation that siphoned the congealed blood out of his wound, leaving it clean, raw, and pink before new blood began to flow freely out.

“The dittany now,” Newt directed. “Just a few drops.”

After applying the essence of dittany, the cut looked miraculously better. Jacob held up Newt’s torn and bloody shirt, examining the rip. “How did this even happen?”

“I think Thomas nicked me with one of his horns. They’re magnificent, by the way, the horns. I want to measure their dimensions at some point, but I already know that the numbers will be impressive.” Newt had stood up and was plastering a bandage over his injury. Jacob wasn’t at all surprised that he could speak so enthusiastically about something that had hurt him, and to top it off, name that something ‘Thomas’.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my GOD I feel like I had to drag my last bits of motivation kicking and screaming out of the depths of my soul to finish this chapter. Just… this chapter was such a bitch to write. Ah well. It’s done now, even if it is a little shorter than I’d like. I’m realizing that there has now been a whole lotta Jacob and not so much Newt, so I’m gonna try to even it out AGaiN next chapter.  
> Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They say there’s no place like home for the holidays. It’s a good thing that Newt and Jacob carry ‘home’ with them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys I know I said time was going to move more quickly now but tbh I did not see anything to this scale coming and I’m basically crying from a combination of laughter and dismay because apparently over the next 2-3 chapters a year’s going to pass I’m so sorry I honestly don’t know what happened but South America is a lot bigger than I thought

Newt flipped through his phrase book. “Aha,” he said under his breath. There it was: _Where can I find… a restroom? a train station? lodgings?_ Newt inserted his own ending, painstakingly reading out to the Dominican wizard, “Donde puedo encontrar un lethifold?”

Jacob, peering over his shoulder, said, “Wait, where does it say ‘lethi…’?”

Newt was more interested in the reaction of the man whom he’d pulled aside from surreptitiously selling glumbumble treacle. He went pale, his eyes wide, and hissed what sounded like an order for Newt to lower his voice. He gestured for Newt to follow him, weaving through the crowds of people to a door near the bar. There, he made eye contact with the bartender, who nodded in admission. He opened the door, and finally seemed to notice Jacob. He said something in a sharp, suspicious tone, shaking his head.

Newt took Jacob’s arm protectively. “He stays with me,” he said firmly.

The sentiment must have translated, because the man allowed them both to pass into a dimly lit storage closet. They each pulled up a crate of firewhiskey and sat down, and through a great deal of searching through the phrase book and dictionary on both sides, Newt discerned that particularly talented murderers were known to use lethifolds as weapons. He assured the glumbumble dealer that he was a scientist, not a murderer, and asked if there was anywhere he could find written records of lethifold attacks. On the way to find the man who might have such records, Jacob finally asked, “So, what’s a lethifold, anyway?”

“It’s a very mysterious creature, and very dangerous. They suffocate and feed on sleeping humans. They’re difficult to find, difficult to predict, and leave no sign when they attack. It’s fascinating. I think they might be somewhat related to dementors.”

“They suffocate people?” Jacob repeated nervously.

“Yes.”

“And then eat them?”

“Yes.”

“And… and they live around abouts here,” he checked.

“Yes.”

“So I shouldn’t worry,” Jacob said in a flat tone that implied not worrying would absurd.

“Of course not,” Newt replied anyway. “A lethifold probably couldn’t get into the suitcase.”

“ _Probably_?”

Newt stopped in front of building, rereading the address he had copied down. “Here we are.”

Jacob followed as he strode towards the door, saying again, “Newt, _probably_?”

\- - - - -

“Newt, what are you _doing_?” Jacob asked in mild horror (he’d noticed that he said that a lot around Newt – that, and “What _happened_?”).

Newt looked up from the tree limb he’d just severed from its source, blinking in puzzlement. “It’s diseased, I had to –”

Jacob shook his head. “Not that.” He pointed at Newt’s free hand. “ _That_.”

Newt followed his gaze to the potato clutched in his hand. He’d just produced it from his pocket and bit into it, with an alarming crunch. “What about it?”

“Why are you eating a _raw potato_?” Jacob often had to ask for some insight to Newt-logic, but this took the cake.

Newt tilted his head, glancing back and forth between Jacob and the potato, bewildered. “I’m… hungry?”

“Why didn’t you say so, then?”         

He shrugged, turning back to the tree branch to examine it, and, inexplicably, took another bit out of the potato. “I’m perfectly capable of finding the icebox on my own.”

Jacob sighed. “The icebox is full of raw potatoes, Newt.”

“I _know_.” Newt said, seeming slightly exasperated. “I was in there.”

“I asked if you wanted lunch an hour ago and you said you were fine,” Jacob accused.

“I was. Now I’m hungry. I was saving this.”

“There’s apple cake in the cupboard. There’s a whole tin full of cheese paczki. I’m making latkes later – and you’d rather stick a raw potato in your pocket and call it a day.”

It wasn’t a question, but Newt, being Newt, answered anyway. “Yes.”

Jacob could see there was no point in arguing. “Crazy,” he said, shaking his head. “You’re stark crazy.”

In all reality, Jacob couldn’t stay too annoyed; he was having too nice of a time. The holiday season had sprung up out of nowhere: one day they were traveling and exploring and getting into and then neatly out of danger, and the next day they were in Costa Rica, realizing that wreaths of tropical flowers could be seen on doors. Newt had dragged a spruce tree from his English forest into their bedroom, and it now stood there decorated with obliging fairies. There had also been an incident involving a gaping hole in the wall of the room when Newt got overambitious and tried to install a fireplace, and the prospective Yule log was to sit in a cast iron pan instead. Meanwhile, Jacob was baking more than ever – all the same recipes his grandmother had always made for Hanukkah. It was comfort food, perfect for the cozy, peaceful tone each day had taken on. They’d decided to spend a few weeks in one place, vacationing – although, to Newt, ‘vacationing’ meant staying shut up with the beasts all day, taking care of overdue chores and spending an unwarranted amount of time wrestling with crup puppies for fun. It was still wonderful, and before Jacob knew it Christmas Eve had arrived and Newt was knelt on the floor tinkering with the Yule log.

“Just have to… There.” The log ignited with a flick of Newt’s wand, and he rejoined Jacob on the rug. “So. Cards?” He picked up a pack of cards that had been lying innocently on the floor a moment before. Jacob now realized it was smoking slightly.

“Uh… Sure.” He eyed the cards warily as Newt took them out. The deck crackled and sparked. “What are we playing?”

“Exploding Snap. Don’t worry, it’s very simple. I can teach you.” Halfway through dealing Jacob a hand of cards, Newt paused, his face falling. “Oh, I forgot! You haven’t a wand.”

“Well, could we play something else? I could show you one of our card games,” he suggested. Newt brightened, so Jacob explained slapjack. “But,” he said when he’d finished, “I don’t know if it’s safe to play with exploding cards.”

“It should be fine,” Newt assured him. “Slapjack sounds quite like Exploding Snap without wands.”

Jacob wasn’t fully convinced, and for good reason: three rounds in, the pile of cards exploded, just as Newt slapped his hand down on it. The rug ignited, Newt doused the flame with his wand, and Jacob fussed over his hand, which had suffered a burn wound. Even so, Newt insisted that that was half the fun of Exploding Snap cards. “Setting things on fire is ‘half the fun’?” Jacob said in disbelief. Newt just replied that they should play another round.

In the end, they played eight rounds, if Jacob’s count was correct. By that time it was getting late, and they fell back to just talking. Newt had folded himself into a position that looked it should be only comfortable for a cat, drifting off in front of the smoldering Yule log.

Finally, Jacob noticed that Newt had stopped responding and was fast asleep. He smiled fondly, leaned over, and nudged him. “Newt, you can’t sleep next to a fire.”

Newt, still half asleep, rolled over. “I can, too,” he insisted in a drowsy mumble. “I always do. Tradition.”

Jacob laughed quietly. “Boy, you just love setting yourself on fire for tradition, don’t you.” Newt didn’t offer a response, but Jacob wasn’t expecting one; he was asleep again. Jacob patted his shoulder. “Merry Christmas, pal.”

\- - - - -

“Hey, Newt,” Jacob said, poking his head into the bedroom, “you want chalka, or are you just gonna pretend to have some fruit for breakfast and then run off like usual?”

Newt joined Jacob in the kitchen doorway without answering, and held out a small, slightly lumpy package. “Happy Boxing Day.”

Jacob took the gift, regarding it with surprise. “Boxing Day? I thought you give presents on Christmas.”

Newt shook his head. “Christmas is for family. Boxing Day is for friends.”

“Oh. Huh.” Jacob looked pleased. “I didn’t think you’d gotten me anything. Okay, then.” He tore the paper open and pulled from the middle a thin chain with a circular brass locket on the end. It swung gently from side to side as Jacob let the necklace dangle from his fingers, examining it.

“Open it,” Newt requested.

Jacob did, and his eyes widened upon seeing what was nestled inside: a coil of soft, fine, silvery-white strands of hair. “Wow. What is it?”

“Unicorn hair. It’s… a bit of a shielding talisman. They’re highly magical beasts, unicorns, and very protective. Of their young and of their fellows.” Jacob wasn’t saying anything, so Newt went on, a little flustered. “I hope you like it? It isn’t really anything special; just some bits and pieces I had lying around –”

“I love it, Newt.” Jacob’s voice was sincere and full of wonderment. “Thanks.” He closed the locket and put it around his neck. Newt smiled, and he grinned back. “Come on. Maybe I’ll get you to eat something what’s real substantial.”

\- - - - -

“Fifteen seconds,” Jacob announced, eyes on his watch. “Five… four… three… two… one…” He threw his arms out wide, beaming. “Happy New Year!”

Newt held up his glass and they toasted. He drained his glass, thinking about the past and the future. It was over a year ago that he had met Jacob and his whole life had changed – or, rather, it had simply shifted a little, carving out a space for a dear friend a warm, welcoming presence and a beautiful smile. Thinking on that – and seeing it all, right in front of him, as Jacob refilled their glasses while humming a fragment of a song – he realized that another year with Jacob in his life was the best thing he could possibly wish for.

“To travel,” Jacob said, standing from the kitchen table and raising his glass. “To learning new things, and seeing new places, and –”

“And to doing it with friends,” Newt finished.

Jacob smiled. “Yeah. To friends.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to 1928, guys! You’re not gonna believe this but I swear to god it really happened: I accidentally typed ‘Happy Newt Year’ in the New Year’s scene and almost didn’t catch it before I posted. Is that fitting or what? Anyway, did a heck ton of Hanukkah research for this, and apparently it wasn’t as widely celebrated as it is now until like, the 70s. It was actually considered not that important because it’s a historical holiday rather than an actual religious holiday, like not in the Torah, and I know it’s horrible to say but literally every source I read said that it was popularized mostly to get in on the Christmas action. So yeah, Jacob’s experience of Hanukkah is sort of low-key, and because of what I know/assume about his family and childhood, primarily about traditional Polish Hanukkah food. Also, friendship necklace, anyone? Hint hint, it might at some point be a bit of an allegory of Peter Pan’s kiss, for those of you who’ve read the original story (and don’t you just love it when pretentious authors speak in riddles?) But back to the holidays. Happy holidays! I forced myself to finish this in time for Christmas, so I hope you all enjoyed the season-appropriate fluff (and special shoutout to jlcamp09, for the Yule log scene). We’ll be back to adventure next chapter.  
> And on that note, I ran a little short again! Sorry about that. 5 and 6 both sort of felt like a transition period, and hopefully I can get past that hitch now.  
> By the way, I’m in love with the idea of Newt rolling around in the dirt, playing with magical puppies, laughing until he can’t breathe.

**Author's Note:**

> Is this just going to be a short visit? Is Newt here to stay? Will he ever unlock Jacob’s tragic backstory? Stay tuned to find out more!  
> (If you want to know about the backstory go on the Harry Potter Wiki and search “Mildred”)  
> (Also please comment if you read and like it because I’m in rarepair hell and I want people to be enthusiastic with)


End file.
